


Everything's on Fire

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Ashes to Ashes [1]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Stargate Fusion, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Terrorism, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:48:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23762581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: The events at Victoria had stolen an entire regiment of new pilots from Treize, young men who were without a doubt well-trained in his ideas and rhetoric. It was a remarkable act of terrorism, one that was aimed deliberately at him and he knew it. Someone wanted them to fail. No. Him to fail. It was too specific for it to have been a random act, a blind strike that happened to hit too close to his heart. That Noin, the instructor, had been left alive was a message to him.
Relationships: Chang Wufei/Treize Khushrenada
Series: Ashes to Ashes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711870
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7





	Everything's on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, long ago in GW fandom, we wrote something terrible called Asche zu Asche. What with everyone partying like it's 1999, we have used our quarantine time to accidentally re-write it. 
> 
> While we were rewriting the timeline for our amusement, we aged everyone up because it's more fun when everyone is a grown ass adult.

The world had changed since the discovery of Atlantis, an alien city that touched down in the Pacific Ocean to float delicately on the shifting waves as though it had never belonged anywhere else. Alien life was no longer theoretical -- it was a fact, and humankind being what it happened to be, the first impulse of every government on Earth was clear.

Kill them all.

When it became readily apparent that would not be possible, secondary impulses were followed: protect Earth at all costs.

With alien technology available, it was decided that the best option would be to create satellites, place them in delicate positions to provide military coverage. The political wrangling lasted a decade or more until finally it was decided that several different countries would work to place colonies at Earth-Moon Lagrange Points -- Japan, America, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and China. It took years for the first to be built, although the second wasn't far behind. L1, they called it, or Colony 1, or a million other things that neatly summed it up not at all. A perfect location to monitor and coordinate missions in space, true space, not the wormholes created to step between worlds thanks to naquadah. Crisis management, they said. Way station. No one asked questions about the defense methods designed, the development of alien technology into something more like weapons, able to strike down anyone who considered the possibility of invading Earth's space. Last line of defense; first step into immediate space.

L2 followed after that, small, on the far side of the Moon. It was shielded from the sun, perpetually dark, and power generation was difficult at best. L3 was on the Sun side of Earth in constant light, and people sometimes swore they stood within its shadow, even if they couldn't see it. Active stationkeeping was necessary in both cases, a delicate balancing act to keep them in place.

So it went, and so things grew. L4 and L5 were balanced just so near the moon's orbit, and of them all they were the most stable. They were the easiest to sustain, and so things changed. Each one was settled into place and slowly colonized. L1, L2, and L3 required a great deal more attention due to their positions; their people were sent to do very specific jobs, some of which were more dangerous than others. The first two decades were filled with accident report after accident report, and the people of Earth questioned whether or not the colonies were strictly necessary.

The first time an attack on Earth was repelled by them, those questions stopped. Better, everyone thought, to have them there than not, and so it was, and so it remained.

Time passed.

Colonies were not entirely self-sufficient. It wasn't possible. There was the initial terraforming, and then there was the nature of culture itself, even if it morphed slowly in each colony into something no one would recognize fifty years later. There were supplies, too. Water. Elements that had to be imported. With the development of a more natural terraforming system, the water problem was solved, breaking asteroids down into bare component elements that could be used in a functional way. The colonies flourished but they were still bound to their 'home' after a fashion until Earth began to look to colonize further -- Mars, beautiful, distant Mars. A noble goal and a distraction on which to focus, a rallying cry for unity after the last war.

He knew it wouldn't last for long because extended peaces never did exist. It just meant smaller wars with countries who were at a disadvantage. Or colonies.

Or anyone, in fact, so long as there was someone to fight. Somewhere along the way, mankind fell out of its habit of worrying about intergalactic wars and turned back to the thing it did best: fighting with one another over things that were idiotic when it was clear there were much larger threats out there. The myths that had appeared from nowhere in a brilliance and shocked all of Earth slowly disappeared. Most of the technologies faded into the realm of fantasy and folklore. No one noticed when Atlantis drifted deep into the Pacific, and very few had anything to say when all communication with the city slowly filtered off until it was nothing but a fairy story again, and the world believed it had sunk when they weren't looking.

New things occurred, new developments, and mostly, new horrors.

The flawed deployment of nanites on L5 stuck in his mind, a strategically important event that was mostly identifiable by the fact that no one knew what to do but everyone had a lot to say about it. Every day, day in and day out, during command briefings. Mostly they spoke of ways to prevent the knowledge from spilling into mainstream media. Plausible deniability was so far past a possibility that just thinking the words made him grimace because the entire thing had been a nightmare of epic proportions. He could still remember it, remember the feel of the suit around him moving roughly, jarring him with force, and the field of red flowers that had seemed to lose its integrity altogether as the nanites swarmed out, changing the world around them. They had said it was the only way to prevent the Liung Dynasty from coming out of the satellite in a swarm to invade the Alliance and try to force them back decades in time to antiquated social systems and hide-bound honor.

They had lied, and Treize Khushrenada had never once in the intervening years forgotten it. He had been a major then and all he remembered of that day was the swirl of petals and grass, the girl who had spilled out of a half-built mech that hadn't been half as good as his own, and the red that had flowed from her hadn't been nearly such a lovely shade. It had stained everything, and it was all he could see when he dreamed of it; that and the flowing white coat of the young man who had run across the field to her, pale and stumbling.

He supposed the nanites had gotten him as well. Gotten them all, and a lot of their own besides. Assimilated, ruined, replaced. They never got past executions at the mouth of the dropship, but there was war and there was _war_. There were things that weren't to be done, things that he never wanted to see happen again, and the only things the general population cared about were the newest advances.

Promises of perfect health, expectations of war machines that would prevent disasters like the one in Mexico in 2043, creature comforts that would make the world perfect. Mediastreams were tightly monitored so that the things no one wanted to know ever crossed Earth information gateways. The plagues on L2, the nanites on L5, and the fact that the colonies were gearing up for war, each and every one.

They all knew it was coming; that was why the situational awareness briefing was twice a week. Treize exhaled, leaned back in his chair, and felt the eyes of his general snap to him. It was a miracle the man wasn't demanding presentations in crayon rather than the interactive sandtables that were so much more effective.

"Colonel. Perhaps you would like to add something to our discussion." Perhaps he would, but Treize knew that it would do nothing like any good. They preferred to believe that his own assertions were less valid than others, likely because of what was whispered about his... preferences.

"It's a lost opportunity to dismiss the inflow of activity from L4 as increased economic involvement with their allied countries."

"It's too chancy." Septem's mouth twisted as he leaned back in his chair. "We know that they must have war machines, that they’ve managed to get them here. If we make no move to satisfy their demands before they release the machines, there will be no way to pass this off as anything explicable without other things becoming public knowledge that we would prefer to keep quiet."

"You mean L5. And L2. I would rather let that be known than wage unnecessary war on Earth for all the wrong reasons. These 'demands' are blackmail."

General Noventa leaned back in his chair, fingers brought together thoughtfully. "The thing is that their demands wouldn't be unreasonable if we weren't still worried about external forces. We have always said that anyone who wanted to withdraw from UFEC was certainly free to do so."

"Understanding that UFEC is as much a promise to cooperate as it is a way for some of these countries to get free training." Treize watched Noventa, pressing only carefully. He was outranked but not outwitted, which was a disappointing place in which to be. "If they've gone to the trouble of placing mechs on the planet, I'm reluctant to believe that they plan to convert them to public parks when we meet their demands."

"Which is why it would be better to attack in advance. We still have the element of surprise, and if we manage to bring the colonies into line--"

"Then I expect anything we do would just make the people they've already sent to Earth even more determined to continue with whatever terrorist tactics that have been decided upon as appropriate."

"Yes," Treize agreed, "which is why we need to trace the support trail for these mechs. L4, we've got something viable according to intelligence. L2, we can trace that as well. Let's start there, and see where we get."

The whole thing devolved into squabbling after that. God, it made him hate meetings. He could have better spent the time tumbling whoever the latest was on his list, and so he spent a significant amount of the rest of the meeting doing his best to keep his imagination occupied with exactly that.

He'd reached a point in those meetings where he stopped listening. Stopped listening, stopped caring, stopped paying attention because no matter what he said it wasn't enough to get through the static in their brains.

There was a steady throb behind his right eye by the time he got out and he didn't want to go to his next meeting for some sort of poorly thought out presentation that would suggest alternate methods of dealing with the colonies and their desire for freedom. The alternate methods that were devised wouldn't make a damn change if no one would agree that they were a possibility and no one would commit. All the good ideas were dying on the vine because they needed to wait. They needed to wait. Everything was waiting, waiting for what? For everything to go wrong it seemed to Treize. Wrong the way it had on L2. Wrong the way it had on L5, and he shuddered just considering that. How could they possibly have managed to find the uncorrupted materials to build anything when the nanites must have caused everything to fall apart at the first opportunity? Unless, of course they hadn't built a thing and were just planning to drop a load of nanites on Earth, which he supposed would've served them right. He packed his ruck up for the day, a slow process accompanied by stretching and a bit of peering around to see if there was anything else going on. The datastreams were clogged, and while it was all useful in an interesting way it wasn't entirely immediately useful. It wasn't as if he wouldn't re-engage them immediately when he reached his home.

"You look as though you've reached the end of patience for the day." Medium brown hair, cut short and curling just behind her ears, ridiculous high cheekbones and eyes that could very likely cut steel which were hidden behind thin sheened panes of glass.

His EA was gorgeous and frightening and unnecessary, and though he did appreciate her presence at the posting, it did feel a bit like overkill. She'd arrived as soon as he'd been given the word that he'd passed his boards, and though he was still weeks away from his new rank, there she was. It was good to see her again after their Victoria years, but he kept telling himself Une was just someone to manage his calendar and his meetings and to put a layer between himself and his men.

"I can help you pack together a few things. I have that briefing ready, and I've been working on the presentation for Thursday."

"Thank you, Major Une." He slipped his datasheets into his ruck along with his computer and datapad. "You did good work today."

She bent her head in acknowledgment, eying him with a certain amount of interest; he smiled at her, but didn't follow through any longer. She was always interested, but there were certain company piers off of which he did not fish. Not now, not with impending rank. "Thank you, sir."

Someone who used their subordinates, people who looked to him for mentorship, was someone he never wanted to be. "Enjoy the rest of your evening, Une." He shouldered his bag, light as it was, and waited for her to leave so he could go as well.

"Of course, sir. Are you sure?" The light flirt of her lashes was unmistakable. Half of the base despised him because he was known to have a voracious appetite. The other half wanted to be in bed with him.

Occasionally there was crossover between the two camps as someone who wanted to bed him also detested him because he was rather insatiable in bed. "I'm sure." He kept his smile pleasant, and brushed past her carefully. There had been something powerful there once, and then she’d, he didn’t know. He didn’t hold it against her by any means, but he wasn’t one to re-engage. 

"Tomorrow then, sir." And tomorrow, and the day after that, but it was never going to come to what she wanted anymore. He couldn't manage it the way he could have when they were younger, when he wasn't in any position of power. Immediate subordinates made for terrible lovers, and far too much of a risk of reprimand. He danced that line often enough as it was.

He took a wander through the spaces to see if Lt. Marquise had left; if he hadn't, why not, and if he had, well. It all came out the same in the wash for Treize, but there were things about which one should be polite. When he decided fucking someone was a safe activity, he never preferred to fuck and run. It was a bit like networking in a way, and in his case it was a magnificent means to make sure no one ever forgot him. They might not remember him fondly, but they did remember him. For better or worse. Then again, it always seemed to work out for the better, and there was Zechs, leaning a thigh against his desk as he flipped through pages of printed material. He was terribly vain, squinting at the fine print instead of just getting glasses. One hand reached up and rubbed the back of his hair, ruffling it ridiculously.

"You look deep in thought." He was going to interrupt it. Pleasantly, Treize supposed, leaning against the edge of Zechs's working space.

That gained him a lazy blink of dark blond lashes, Zechs standing so that he was tall enough to peer at him through them. A smile snuck over finely-carved lips, the outer edges tipping upwards. "I was until you dragged me out of it. How was your day?"

"Every day above ground is a good one." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm calling it. Today wasn't my day to change the world."

Of all the people with whom Treize worked, Zechs was the one he thought understood the most. There was something about him, something that just didn't seem the same as the others. Of course he limited their pillow talk to generalities, but still, he trusted him more than most. "The day will come." He believed it, and Treize was fairly certain that Une also believed. Several of the people under his command were familiar with his way of doing things, with the things he wanted to accomplish. They worked just as hard as he did, and he appreciated it.

"Not today. If you check your secure streams, you can see why." He leaned in closer to Zechs, watching as he did just that, flipping over almost immediately. That was different from most, as well.

"That certainly doesn't bode well. They honestly believe that will work?" Zechs's lips tightened and he shifted to support himself against the desk. "Only idiots would be fooled, and anyone should know that the colonies aren't lacking in political savvy."

Treize reached forward, and carefully flipped the lens off from over the other man's eye. "They're lacking in power in all but one thing -- they have an excellent location to defend us from as well as to attack us. Death from the skies is a powerful tool to wield."

"Nothing else is quite as terrifying." It was the nature of any small thing to be afraid of grasping claws in the sky, and human beings were no exception to that rule. No matter what war machines might have already been smuggled to Earth, the colonies could destroy the world from their location with proper planning and execution, which was why two of them had already been rendered useless. That was the danger of looking inwards and not outwards. They were so sure that if something came back their way from space, they could handle it from Earth without that threat of death from above. How soon they'd turned on their saviors in the Colonies.

How very human of them all.

"Unfortunately there are many things that are more terrifying than that."

"Not if you're Septem. You would think the Goa'uld infiltration might have reminded the lot of them that there are worse things." Zechs reached up, rubbed the soft, short hair at the nape of his neck. "Let's get coffee. I doubt there could be enough liquor to blot out this." 

"We could always double down on our efforts and get coffee with liquor in it." He took a back step, waiting to lead the way or for Zechs to pack up for the evening.

"Not that stuff you prefer. I suspect it would also serve well as paint thinner." Still, that wasn't a no. It was quite significantly not a no, and Treize could appreciate that, just as he could savor watching Zechs shuffle things into the rucksack he carried around with him.

"And yet you're still going to come with me," Treize pointed out. Zechs had everything secured in short order; as soon as the bag was shouldered, Treize took another step away to lead out.

"Of course I'm coming with you, sir. If I didn't, you might go straight to the paint thinner, and I would undoubtedly be blamed when a horrific replacement officer was assigned."

Treize snorted when Zechs fell into step with him. Navigating the hallways out of the office section of the compound was easy, too familiar. It told him he'd been doing staff work for far too long, the siren call of getting back to operational and tactical level work pulling at him. "No, you could welcome him with a can of paint thinner. I've always wanted to go down in infamy."

That glance at him said it all. "Then I'll call Noin and another friend. After all, if we're going to be notoriously disreputable, I've always thought it was better to do it in excess."

He snorted and stopped to get retinal clearance out of the room, his final departure for the day. "For welcoming my replacement? I'm disappointed. I don't get such treatment."

"Maybe if you asked prettily." No matter what, Zechs just tossed it back at him. Treize liked that in a person, that ability to banter back and forth and make things easy. It was nice to know people who could respect him when it was necessary and yet could also be friendly with him when it wasn't.

"Too late, I think you already said yes when I was asking less pretty. C'mon." He shifted his weight back onto his trailing leg, knowing that Zechs mimicked and read body language.

Zechs snorted, inelegant and amused. "At least I can be pretty sure that one way or the other we won't get drunk under the table. No one outdrinks you, even the usual bunch of alcoholics we work with. Sir." Yes, yes. "Staff meeting tomorrow morning might be a little hungover. I guess we'll live. Blue Sky Bar, then?"

"Blue Sky Bar. Let's say..." Treize checked the clock, and rounded up. "20:00?"

"Might be as late as 20:15, but I'll see you then. Order something better than the paint thinner, though." A wave of his hand, and Zechs split off, heading away from the exit. "See you in a bit."

He'd change out of his uniform and head over, see if they could get a good group together. Make a night of it, because Treize knew they wouldn't have the opportunity again for a very long time.

* * *

"Wufei."

Slow deep breath. Then another.

Then a third, and he finished the kata before opening his eyes and glancing at the open doorway through the transparent clean room wall. "Father."

Chang Wen stood and watched his son. He looked a good deal older than he had only a few years before, streaks of pure white tainting the river of black hair loosely held back at the nape of his neck. "Wufei. It's time."

Reaching back, Wufei pulled the elastic out of his own hair, letting it spill in sweaty strands against the back of his neck as he contemplated everything that came next. Eight years had passed since the initial nanite deployment. Eight years to realize exactly how catastrophic the results of that invasion had been.

Eight years for every single available resource to be funneled into finalizing all of the plans involving Operation Meteor, including the pilots.

Eight years to mourn his wife.

Eight years to mourn his mother.

Eight years to mourn everyone.

Liung clan traditions were immutable; the heir to the dynasty wed at no younger than fourteen and no later than eighteen. Liung Meiran had been a year younger than he when they wed twelve years ago, and she had died just short of her twenty-first year.

He still remembered that day as clearly as if it were yesterday; both of them doing their best to fight the Alliance's onslaught, the moment that he saw the canisters being released, the moment that he understood exactly what was going to happen even if he had not understood the resulting horrors that would descend upon L5-A0206.

Then again, how could anyone have understood them?

At least Meiran had died whole, internal injuries destroying her after the battle as they had sat in the field of red flowers where he had so often gone to read and meditate. She had leaned on him, and he had known even if he had not wanted to know. Her death was a clean death, a warrior's death. It was as close to acceptable as he supposed she might have hoped.

His mother's hadn't been.

The colony had been over one hundred and sixty years old by the time they had arrived in space. He'd been born the same year, and had never known anything except the colony as home. His mother had missed Earth, though, had missed so many things, much like the older members of the Dragon clan. The elderly had chosen a section of the colony that left a wide view of the Earth spinning close by, within sight. It had also been disconcertingly close to one of the subsections that had been sealed and stripped for parts and any other resources that would help to maintain the livable areas.

The damage from the mobile suits had been significant even in the sturdier parts of the colony. The damage from the nanites...

It had spread quickly.

The automatic safety systems had shut down when it detected the contamination, entire portions of the colony sealing themselves in order to preserve life as best it could. It had sacrificed the less well-maintained sections one at a time, passage between them impossible. No matter how quickly work had begun to try and evacuate people, there had been little hope of being successful.

His mother, his grandparents, so many of the elders, had died gasping and cold. Their deaths had been slow and horrible, but at least, Wufei supposed, they had been spared the other indignities.

So, for the most part, had he. The plan for him had been in place for a very long time, up to and including nanite-enhancement. Fortunately, the nanite programming was incompatible with ones released by the Alliance -- mostly -- and so the side effects Wufei had suffered had been minimal despite the fact that he had been at the primary release site.

The rest of the Clan... 

Babes had died in the womb even before the mutations began; the youngest and the oldest members of the clan had been the worst affected, but the others had begun to succumb over time, all while Chang Wufei and the scientists working on Shenlong -- Nataku -- had been sealed away in the hope that there would be time to complete their work.

There had been no babies since then.

There would be no more babies.

No one would die a natural death or a clean one. No one but him. He'd had eight years to think about that, too.

"When?" He would be unlikely to see his father again, he knew. This would be the last time, and it would be through the thick transparent wall between them.

"Twenty-three hundred hours Beijing time." Late enough that Alliance forces would not be expecting it and normal people would be unlikely to look out their windows. If he landed in the mountains north of Lanzhou, that should provide him with more natural camouflage, better places to conceal Nataku during the day. He would make forays from there; he had given that a great deal of thought, as well.

Stepping forward, Wufei laid a hand against the wall, and his father moved as well -- slow, yes, carefully because his bones were brittle and his health was fading with every passing day. There were inches between their palms and that hurt. It was painful, and Wufei could feel the dampness at his lash line. He widened his eyes slightly and looked across the way. "I won't hide," he promised. "I won't run away. I will do everything in my power to make sure that they pay. That _he_ pays."

Mr. Treize, that soldier had called him. It hadn't been difficult to find out exactly who that was.

"Be careful, my son. Be brave." He could see the dampness of his father's eyes, as well. "And above all..."

"I know." He did know. He understood. "I will."

He would live. No matter what.

He would live.

* * *

Coming down from space had been appallingly easy. Whatever respect Chang Wufei might have held for the Alliance (and god alone knew that it hadn't been much) was lost when he landed in China without any kind of resistance or anyone willing to fight him. It wasn't that he thought he was just that good although he knew that he was highly skilled; it was that they were that terrible. The entire thing left him grinding his teeth with dissatisfaction, because there was nothing he hated more than fighting a weak opponent.

Fortunately, Treize Khushrenada couldn't be considered weak by any stretch of the imagination. His intel had been robust, as he was a well documented member of the Romefeller Foundation on top of being a soldier. He had been an alliance Specials Instructor at Lake Victoria at seventeen, a pilot for years before then, and an active tactician who had led well documented raids that had crushed rebellions across the world and the colonies. The man’s sole purpose in the world seemed to be to serve as the Alliance’s lead hunting dog, sniffing out rebellion and ruining lives. And now the man had climbed steadily up the ranks, a forty year old Colonel… or a general. It was hard to tell. Well, he was going to draw Khushrenada's attention. And he knew exactly how to do that.

The dirt bike he'd appropriated thrummed between his legs, the sound of the motor high, the smell of it tinged with the thick acrid scent of burning oil, weirdly sweet on the back of his tongue. It wasn't loud, but he'd have to stop in a mile or so and hide it so that he wouldn't be heard when he got closer to the base. Nataku, for now, was well-camouflaged and he wasn't worried that anyone would find it before he returned. Hell, he wasn't all that worried that anyone would find it even if they caught him for what he was about to do. He didn't even feel bad about it if he were being honest with himself. Why should he? After all. They'd destroyed his family long before he'd conceived of any of this.

Besides, they had to know that they were in danger after the initial attacks made by the Gundams. Five of them in all, and he didn't know much about the others beyond the fact that they existed. The datastreams had been remarkably silent about any of the attacks despite the fact that his kill count alone should have had the mediastreams going haywire. He'd had to hack into the Specials database to find out that much, although he probably wouldn't have made the effort if he'd realized that it wouldn't get him anywhere nearer finding the location of Khushrenada.

It didn't matter. He had other ways of flushing him out, and enough explosives to keep going until he got what he wanted. 

The guards at Victoria base were terrible. The ease with which he worked his way past them left him sour and scowling even after he'd planted all of his devices and worked his way back to his bike. It was still well within range for what he planned, but he'd need to make a quick exit after he was done. Even as poorly prepared as they seemed to him, someone might have the nerve and guts to try and search him out. Better to be safe than sorry, Wufei thought, getting in position to wait.

Dusk settled, and then full darkness, and yet he remained where he was. It was boring, and the air was thick with mosquitoes, the sound of katydids and crickets loud around him. He'd been fortunate; the rain had stopped for the time being, although the winds had not, leaving the sky surprisingly clear for the season. He was mostly sheltered in the nook of the rocks where he'd tucked himself away, but the humidity intensified the effects of the cold, leaving his fingers stiff and frigid. He hadn't been entirely prepared for the differences in climate, and that was something to rectify in future, if only for the sake of the shivers working through him as he kept watch.

Lights began to flick out, one by one by one. He kept watch on a particular set of buildings, his stomach twisting and heavy. Long after most of them had gone, he was still crouched between the rocks, still watching the windows. All of his other attacks had been in broad daylight and he hadn't flinched from them. This one... this one was different. Victoria had been his idea, and it was a heavier burden than killing Alliance soldiers who knew what was coming. Victoria was where Treize Khushrenada had taught; it was where the OZ Specials learned to pilot, where their mechs were built.

Victoria was personal, and so it was only right that he take a moment, or twenty, or an hour, to try and settle the weight of what he was doing beforehand, surely. If he was perhaps torturing himself just a bit as he remained in the cold for a bit longer, well. No one ever had to know.

When he finally found his resolution and locked it firmly into place, Wufei stood and readied his bike before once again observing the building. One more light flickered into darkness. His brain kicked inanely into an ancient play he'd once read -- _Out, out, brief candle!_ \-- before he took a deep breath, raised hand holding the remote detonator firmly, and then he depressed the trigger.

The results were immediate and catastrophic. The first explosion was so loud that he couldn't hear the sound of the birds around him taking flight, just saw them in their immediate wildly flapping state. The second went after that, and then the third, fourth, fifth, and everything was chaos after that.

In some ways, he wanted to stay; wanted to watch, see if they were any better at attack response than they had been at identifying someone who shouldn't have even been on their base. He didn't have time for that, though; didn't have time for anything, so instead he slung a leg over the bike, started it up, and began to make his way back to his Gundam. If he were lucky, no one would notice him thanks to the noise and chaos he was leaving behind. If he weren't lucky...

Well. He'd just have to hope that he was.

He only flicked on the headlight when he reached the intersection for the main highway; it would still be suspicious, but it would probably be more suspicious if he didn't. The sound of the explosions lingered in his mind as much as in his ears, so the roaring of the machine under him didn't sound as loud as it had when he'd first arrived. His hand shook on the handlebar, heart racing inside of him, and he gritted his teeth, determined to keep his mind on the next step and the one after that and the one after that. He concentrated on the sharp slice of the cold air against his skin, and tried not to think.

Behind him, the world lit up as the base sent up flares to help light the night sky, and he hit the accelerator hard, crouching lower. He needed to make it to the trees up ahead, get out of sight. 

Wufei didn't hear the Aries until it was on him, coming down from the rock face running beside the road to linger behind him. A litany of curses settled into his brain, _shitfuckdamn, shitfuckdamn, shitfuckdamn_ , as he began to weave from side to side, hoping against all hope that the pilot would turn out to be ragingly incompetent.

When he wasn't fired upon immediately, he made the choice to leave the road. Dust kicked up everywhere around him, making his exact location a little dicy, but certainly not enough that the pilot couldn't see him, so it wasn't a surprise when strafing fire came, cacophonous and flashing behind him. He glanced back as if that might help, and then the rear tire slid on a patch of sand, throwing him hard into the air. Everything felt sharp and bright and slow, and he drew his limbs in tight, braced heavily for impact.

When it came, it knocked all of the breath out of him and he sort of bounced, if it could be called that. Flares of agony sprang to life along all of his scrapes and bruises, and he wondered for a moment if he'd died before he heard a voice yelling at him over the mobile suit's intercom. Wufei dragged himself up, body limp and shaken, staggering to slowly raise his hands above his head. It took a moment before he could make out what he was hearing.

"...pirator! Going after pilots instead of mobile suits? What kind of a man are you!?"

Huh.

That was... it sounded like a woman.

A nasty mean-hearted shudder worked its way through him, and he muttered to himself, "I know that line from somewhere..."

"...a child? It can't be." Wufei wondered if she knew that her comms were still broadcasting. "A child single-handedly destroyed our base?"

He'd never thought being cursedly short would play so much to his own advantage. That woman thought he was a child, and his eyes widened. "A woman... then it's not over yet." Especially if she'd mistaken him for a kid.

A glance down revealed that the pack from his bike was at his feet, and he thanked every god under the sun for that and the adrenaline still flooding his system. With an effort, he caught the edge of the strap with his toes and tossed it up before jumping into a roundhouse kick. The moment his foot made contact with the bag, the flash grenade he'd had primed went off, setting off the others within. He'd managed to blind the pilot, he was sure, and he got the bike up and running again as fast as he could before he took off for the edge of the trees.

Luck and the gods were with him. There was no better explanation for it, because he made it to the trees and dropped the bike, flicking it off as he ran for Nataku. Ran for his life.

This wasn't over yet. They'd be coming for him with more mobile suits, and he'd see it to the end.

Before the night was through, Treize Khushrenada would know that a Gundam was responsible for killing all of his fresh new pilots.

He would know that the justice of space was coming for him.

And when Wufei planned his next move, it would be something that made him feel cleaner.

* * *

Nothing had gone as planned.

While he had known the colonies were smuggling in weapons, and he had well suspected it was more than just that, no one had expected mobile suits. No one had expected simultaneous attacks in five different locations.

No one had expected what happened at the Victoria base.

An entire class of fresh recruits mowed down save their instructor would normally have left a number of questions to be asked, questions that would neither wait nor be ignored. If Lucrezia Noin hadn't been excellent at her job, and if there hadn't been video and audio footage of the event...

Well. Those things had been present, though, proof positive of exactly what had happened. No, she wouldn't need to answer any sorts of questions, wouldn't get called into a tribunal. Treize was quietly amused even if it wasn't the first showing he wanted OZ to have. Or any showing he wanted his men to have. It didn't rain but it stormed with everything happening all at once. Things were coming to a head across the galaxy even if the Alliance liked to pretend they weren't. The Goa'uld showing up was sign enough of that. For all anyone knew, they'd invaded the colonies, but Treize didn't think so.

No. This battle, this sheer viciousness, was utterly human. Goa'uld thought in the broad strokes of a cartoon villain. Only humans could be so determined as to blow up an entire barracks full of boys barely old enough to go to war. He admired it on many levels; the harshness of it, the blow it was not only to resources but to morale, a surgical strike that had the airwaves and datastreams bursting with panic and unease. In its way, it made his life a bit easier. Made his plans something that would come to fruition all the faster.

Perhaps he should feel more guilty about the things he had arranged to happen in the immediate future. Peace, peace and stagnation, though no one in the war room or the update briefs assumed that Colonel Khushrenada had any such designs in his head.

More fool them. 

Zechs's face had been reaper grim when he'd called from Victoria, but he had explained that he was taking the newfound Tallgeese for further testing and re-building, and Treize had let it go at that. Better not to ask and to trust that his friend knew his ideals and how best to put them into place.

He was busy doing other things.

"Une." He hit the Comms on. "Are you available?" It was an insistent question as he found a break in his mental space from between his papers and his maps and his requisitions.

_"Of course, sir. I'll be with you momentarily."_

No matter how things had ended so badly between them, Une understood when he spoke and extrapolated reliably most of the time. Hopefully today would be no exception to that fact. She was the essence of executing mission command, and it was thrilling for him to work with such a sharp mind. "Thanks. See you in a moment. Out." He turned off the comms, and leaned back in his chair.

A week at most for him to make the arrangements he needed to get Une in place. That would be a start in convincing the Alliance generals that the colonies were planning more obvious terrorism than just the attacks on Earth.

A week to kick everything into gear. A week to make sure that Romefeller was no more aware of his plans than the Alliance. Just thinking about it made him tired, and he leaned back in his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. Soon it would all be in place, soon it would be a peaceful world. Treize inhaled, held that thought, and felt that peace turning in his mind. By years' end there would be a new and unimaginable world order.

He remembered as a child that one of his step-uncles had been... perhaps the kindest term would be slightly demented, but the truth was simply that he had been paranoid, worried that the government (a nebulous government) was going to come and destroy the things that were his, take what he owned, and force the entire countryside into some sort of unwilling labor. It wasn't that it was entirely unlikely, Treize supposed; it was always possible that such a thing would happen, but it was more likely to be havoc wreaked out of sheer incompetence than actual malice.

It was a shame that he was going to bring the world his step-uncle had believed to be so real into being even if only for a short while. Just enough to make an impact, to shock them all from their complacency of wars and deaths that didn't impact them. From the slow growth of these slaughters, the upward endless climb that would become more and more and... "Ah, Une. Please sit down."

"Your Excellency." Her voice was smooth and easy with a slight edge of veneration that never failed to leave him feeling a little off-balance. "How can I assist you?"

"We need to discuss the matter of former Vice Foreign Minister Darlian of Sanc. Had you ever been to Sanc, Une?" He had, up to their beautiful capital, and he'd seen some of the now secured lands since the king's death. It was hard not to, given, well. Zechs.

She gave a slow blink behind the thin lenses of her glasses. "It's been some time, Your Excellency. Not since I was a child, I expect."

"I wish you could remember it in its glory, before the Alliance. Still, the former Vice Minister waves the Sanc flag in a way that's... Troublesome right now." He inclined his head slightly, watching her. "I need him politically dealt with, ah?"

For a moment, he feared she didn't understand. Then her chin went up, her eyes went cool, and she gave the barest of nods. "Of course, sir. I believe the Vice Minister has a trip to L1 planned for almost immediate departure. I'll make sure that I'm on the shuttle with him."

"Thank you. Politically," he stressed, voice firm and tilting a little softer.

"Of course."

As simple as that. He was fortunate to have people who understood him working under his command, and it made him grateful to have built such a proficient network of humans to help him in his plans. A war didn't exist without the human factor, but the human factor, too, could improve it. Make things better, more subtle. Less obviously arranged to suit someone's ultimate goal, in any case, and that was the important part. Perhaps he was mad, but he clearly wasn't mad alone.

"If I'm dismissed, sir, I'll go ahead and see to packing my things and making my way to the spaceport." Because L1 hadn't so much as a ring platform. Better, by way of Earth thinking, not to allow Goa'uld technology to be placed in the hands of allies when they could instead leave them without those sources.

"Thank you. You're dismissed. I look forward to hearing your results when you return from L1." He smiled at her, and watched her turn.

"Sir." She lingered in the door momentarily. "Do you have any further needs requiring attention before I go? I would hate for you to be assigned someone less... in tune with your demands."

"No. No, I'm quite good and ready for this next stage of activity." The last thing he needed was what that coy look implied.

With that, she nodded and left the room which left him with nothing more exciting than paperwork and behind the scenes manipulation. Sometimes it was such a disappointment that it was so easy to push buttons in the background and still outsmart men who had been in the military much longer than he had, men who had twice the rank he did.

Men who ought to be looking for infiltration considering their situation.

And yet they did not, so he diligently worked and passed on his courses of action, answered his communications. Perfect colonel, everything he had in his domain under control.

If only he weren't so bloody tired.

The events at Victoria had stolen an entire regiment of new pilots from him, young men who were without a doubt well-trained in his ideas and rhetoric. It was a remarkable act of terrorism, one that was aimed deliberately at him and he knew it. Someone wanted them to fail. No. Him to fail. It was too specific for it to have been a random act, a blind strike that happened to hit too close to his heart. That Noin, the instructor, had been left alive was a message to him.

Treize leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled together for a moment to press against his mouth. Whoever it was, it was personal. Had to be, and he had a feeling that Victoria was just a pitstop on the way to find him. It was more than that, honestly, it was a warm bloom in the center of his chest that told him he should be prepared, that he needed to take measures in order to prepare.


End file.
